What makes an entrepreneur? The fine line between genius and crazy

“I can’t stand stupid, and I don’t have patience for petty problems.”Source:Getty Images

PEOPLE often call me crazy, partly because I see things differently or look at every issue as an opportunity.

Or perhaps because I have lost a lot of my faith in humanity based on the countless interactions I have had with people in all walks of life and all wealth levels. I can’t stand stupid, and I don’t have patience for petty problems. My mind never stops working, to a degree where I often find myself staring at something yet I am hardly looking at it.

Others call me a genius, as I can solve most problems in my life in less than 24 hours, regardless of what it is. I can usually turn any idea into a profitable business in 12 months, and I am a master of manipulating environments in order to foster other people’s growth.

So which am I — crazy or genius?

Well I am both, and I am both at all times, meaning that as an entrepreneur, I live in that very fine line between genius and insanity and I live there every single day. This is important to know, especially if you believe that entrepreneurship is all about glamour, rewards, and independence. Being an entrepreneur may be as such, but the journey to becoming one is far from glamorous.

Since entrepreneurship is about pushing your boundaries at all given times and venturing in an area of your mind that is unknown — there are many risks. The journey to becoming one is dangerous, full of sacrifices, and if not fuelled by belief, can lead to catastrophic endings that often can have a very long lasting impact on your mind, body and soul. Since I have been through the trenches and continue to expose myself to them, I figured I would share with you what happens when your awareness level is heightened and you are living on that fine line I mentioned above.

You realise you are more alone than you could ever imagine: Do you ever wonder why your friends and family don’t get you — don’t understand your ambitions and are simply content with belonging to society and surviving? They let petty things get in the way of your success and yet seem to have zero consideration for what you are really working on.

You see everything as a business or transaction, and can rarely just let go: You walk in a dealership to buy a car and yet you can predict every word out of the dealer’s mouth and you know everything will be is a sales pitch. You go skydiving or jet skiing and everything you touch is an upsell to get more money out of you. No matter where you look, or what you do, you are forced to see the business side instead of just enjoying your time. Why can’t you just enjoy yourself without thinking you are being sold to? The problem isn’t that things cost money, but rather that you realise how almost everything is linked to self-driven profits, and only that. Your own relationships with your loved ones become give and take, but unfortunately end up being more give than take because you expect a return that never comes.

You understand more than ever what connects people, and therefore get more disconnected from others than ever before: You start studying behaviour and connecting the dots faster but unfortunately also connect the dots in such predictable ways that you start feeling disconnected from society. You start realising the trends that all point to the same idea that less people are trying to become great and more people are becoming polluted by media, brands, advertisements and eat up just about anything they’re sold. You start feeling sad for people and since you understand how unimportant their focus is, you tend to elevate yourself thinking you are better than others, which creates a serious disconnect between you and the world you interact with.

You isolate your mind: Since no one understands you, or no one has yet proved to mentally support your struggles during the journey, you tend to keep all the pain filtered and away from those around you to look sane. While you do that you go deeper and deeper into isolation, eventually being very alone, even if great people surround you.

You confuse normal people for stupid people: This is typically a mistake that many learn to recover from in due time, but often takes place during the hardest parts of the journey. You tend to confuse lack of awareness with stupidity. In other words, as you meet others who have not endured or gone through the trenches, you tend to look at them as if they’re stupid even though what they are is not necessarily “stupid”, but rather just unaware of the reality you have faced.

It’s like the guy who complains he is not given a 10 minute break at work because the business is busy versus the foreign employee who has been unemployed for 10 years in his country and now finally has a job, but can’t believe someone has the audacity to complain about not getting a 10 minute break. Neither is right or wrong, but both are subjective to experience.

These symptoms may already be happening to you, and you may not know how to let go of them, or why you feel the way you do, but the answer is simple — succeed.

The only thing that separates crazy people from genius people is that genius people made some crazy idea become everyone else’s reality. Remember that the only thing that can truly keep you sane on this journey is your belief in something greater than yourself, something that you are willing to put before yourself. That is the only reason you are willing and able to keep going through what feels like a self-perpetuated hell in order to see your vision come to life, therefore eventually earning yourself the title of entrepreneur.